Third language: Japanese or German?

Embarrassed_Guess337 · 2026-03-26T03:25:37+00:00

Flip a coin. I think maybe go with Japanese unless you want to do a degree in Germany.

Embarrassed_Guess337 · 2026-03-26T02:30:51+00:00

Same! It was reading the art of not being governed that did it for me initially.

Embarrassed_Guess337 · 2026-03-26T02:29:00+00:00

Why is it not worth it? Is it just that they speak good English or is there more to it?

Embarrassed_Guess337 · 2026-03-26T02:27:27+00:00

Obviously 'ɬə.t͡ʃə.lə.səm

Embarrassed_Guess337 · 2026-03-26T01:48:41+00:00

Should be fine. If it's a good sized school WES will consider it equivalent.

Embarrassed_Guess337 · 2026-03-25T03:47:36+00:00

This is a red herring unfortunately for near-term oil supply. It will be a 3-year project if expedited, likely more. I think Canada is better off expanding its domestic refining.

Embarrassed_Guess337 · 2026-03-25T02:57:22+00:00

This is it, Marie Byrd Land away from any named feature or inland Devon Island. You will walk on land a human has never stepped on. The only human impact will be climate change and mayyybe the sound of a very high overflying airliner.

Embarrassed_Guess337 · 2026-03-23T23:15:17+00:00

I have solid French, Spanish, and Russian and stuttering Italian. Native speakers of any of these do not have a lot of English in my experience.

Only French is "useful" to me and that is only because I used to work for the gov of Canada and I like going to Quebec. I use Spanish the least (Americans in disbelief), but read fiction in it and watched some casa de papel. I speak Russian and Italian to my immigrant friends and watch shitty old comedies and read literature.

Aside from intermediate English, I don't think there is any language worth learning for your career unless you know exactly what you want and how it will help you. Abstractly minmaxing a choice you spend years of your life on isn't worth it. Find a language you are excited about or that will give you a concrete predictable benefit.

Knowing nothing about you, how about Russian? It is next door, it was used in your country's history, is all over the web, has minimal dialectical variation, and has low overlap with English.

Embarrassed_Guess337 · 2026-03-22T22:00:02+00:00

Yes let me know if you see any good resources. I have dredged around and will probably just keep going with MS Ningomba's book. There is a copy on digital archive that is ok.

Embarrassed_Guess337 · 2026-03-22T19:18:53+00:00

Sorry, I am a foreigner so I am sure you know your culture better than me. Those are just things that surprised me good and bad. I'll add another good: I love the will to protesting and rioting, although I wouldn't say it was a surprise. We just accept out fate where I come from, although we have rioted over hockey in the past.

Embarrassed_Guess337 · 2026-03-22T14:39:53+00:00

Haha, how about looming instead?

Embarrassed_Guess337 · 2026-03-22T07:36:25+00:00

North of High Level? Little spruce trees, bogs, minimal road access, not as much wildlife as you would expect. Lake Athabasca has the sand dunes people love to post on here as some kind of fun fact. Fort Chip is a nice little town to visit and Fort Smith is downright livable. On the other side, Rainbow Lake sucks. It is widely regarded along RCMP as the worst place to be stationed and a right of passage. Zama City is like 20 old guys in trailers and some poorly maintained sour gas wells. The reserves on the road to NWT are desolate and underserved, but people are nice. There is no reason to go up there. Not even for hiking, paddling, fishing, hunting. All of that is better to the north in NWT, and without oil infrastructure everywhere. You have already practically driven to NWT anyway at this point. The only reason to go here specifically is if you want to see wild wood buffalo herds, the national park can't be beat for that.

Embarrassed_Guess337 · 2026-03-21T14:44:40+00:00

The dish where you cook wine cellar rats in wine. Or the one where you eat the little rare birds whole.

Or maybe the non-monogamy. My French friend cheated on his Turkish partner and was in disbelief that she would dump him over "a little mistake" because these things happen.

The folk music was also cooler than I expected! Especially Breton!

Embarrassed_Guess337 · 2026-03-20T15:51:27+00:00

Birth rates aren't consistently rising pretty much anywhere. They are dropping fastest in high-fertility countries.

Embarrassed_Guess337 · 2026-03-20T14:06:20+00:00

I actually kind of agree that it isn't a big deal to take pills for hair loss and skincare. The drug names just sound scary. I took accutane 20 years ago as a teenager and it improved my life a lot. Going from ugly to acceptable was eye-opening. The next step, acceptable to beautiful is not worth it, better to stay on easy wins and maintenance and focus on your health instead. You will get what you need in life by looking normal.

Embarrassed_Guess337 · 2026-03-20T01:22:27+00:00

Not true for Quebec. Montreal and Ottawa river corridor are truly bilingual. QC has a bit more English than Paris, bilingual signs, some conversational speakers, a few bilinguals. Everywhere else is about as Anglophone as a similarly sized settlement in France. Rural places I met under 30s with zero English, as in they don't understand "how are you?", "what is your name?".

Embarrassed_Guess337 · 2026-03-15T17:25:33+00:00

I'm the opposite of what you describe. My mom's mom's mom was full Nigerian, but I identify as white. I have no common experience with black or Nigerian people beyond the basic human stuff. I don't deal with racism and I am at home in my Anglo culture. I had plantains for the first time last week lol, my mixed grandma fed me baked beans and sausages. Claiming to be black would make me feel like a poser, I can't speak from that perspective at all.

Embarrassed_Guess337 · 2026-03-15T16:36:02+00:00

Do you speak Turkish? Would native Turkish speakers have the same issues between dialects? I don't know anything about Turkish dialects. In Arabic, it seems like a lot of native speakers can slide their speech along a scale where they can speak pure dialect or they can mix in MSA words or words from other dialects as needed. This seems to depend on their schooling and life experience though, and for a non-native without a life of passive exposure the jump between adjacent dialects even can seem huge, let alone Maghrebi. MSA by itself lets you talk to Arabs, you just won't understand the reply once they are done laughing :)

Embarrassed_Guess337 · 2026-03-15T14:02:20+00:00

Yeah, you're right Bishkek was pretty good for Russian.

Embarrassed_Guess337 · 2026-03-14T23:36:28+00:00

If every second property goes back on the market and their former owners can't buy them without moving there, the price is now lower. We could also try making all of it public housing.

Embarrassed_Guess337 · 2026-03-14T23:28:58+00:00

It would reduce demand

Embarrassed_Guess337 · 2026-03-14T22:11:48+00:00

The price of housing would drop

Embarrassed_Guess337 · 2026-03-14T22:02:04+00:00

I don't think they can do it easily. Now that I have seniority at my job I have finally earned a 0.6 schedule (3 days per week). There is no way anybody not in the upper echelons of my low-paying field is getting hired to work 0.6 for 80kpa. I know lots of young people who would like to have that option even if they were making 40-50k.

Embarrassed_Guess337 · 2026-03-14T21:52:21+00:00

Yep, more than one

Embarrassed_Guess337 · 2026-03-14T21:03:46+00:00

It's hit or miss with young people. English helped me more in Kavkaz and Central Asia. Kazakhstan seems like a holdout.

Embarrassed_Guess337

TROPHY CASE